On the eve of the first press day for the NY Auto Show, Nissan unveiled its winning design for the first new taxi (excluding the new Priuses and Ford Escape hybrids that have been adapted as cabs) to hit New York streets since Ford won the contract decades ago with the Crown Vic. It certainly doesn't look like a Crown Victoria, and, as one other journalist wondered aloud while we waited in line to step inside: Why did Nissan even bother entering the market with the NV200, a commercial/contractor style van that wasn't likely to appeal to the 600,000 New Yorkers and tourists who ride in cabs each day?

Once we got inside, though, the answer was obvious: exposure. Nissan expects to sell New York 3000 to 4000 cabs each year for a decade, starting in 2012 (the cab hits the streets in late 2013), and the carmaker was exceedingly careful about building this vehicle not only to meet the demands of drivers, but to create a unique customer experience. And considering the media blitz during Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn's respective speeches about the NV200, you would've thought they were announcing that the taxi fleet had been turned over to Ferrari.

Hardly. But the NV200, which Nissan will sell to the city for $29,700 a pop, will have plenty of features New Yorkers will like. You'll sit a lot higher than in the buckets of a Crown Vic, and the partition between driver and passenger will be a lot farther away. If you wear a seatbelt, it would be very hard to ever hit your head on the partition, which has unfortunately happened to way too many passengers in the Ford. Also, there's nearly a foot more legroom in the NV200 than in the Crown Vic. It will also include passenger reading lights, dual USB chargers for phones, and a redundant HVAC unit for passengers.

Nissan incorporated dozens ideas that came from cab drivers and cab users, and even worked on design language from New York's Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum. Icons like this one, at the rear of the cab, will illuminate in red if a cab is occupied, and a VACANT sign will glow green if a cab is free. Also note the dual sliding doors, like those of a minivan. Every year hundreds of pedestrians and cyclists are "doored" on New York City streets by cab passengers opening taxi doors into traffic.

This car is the first in New York taxi history to be crash-tested in the same setup it will be driven by cab drivers. (All other taxis sold to the city have undergone crash tests as passenger cars, before they were adapted as cabs.) The Nissan is also the first taxi with front and rear curtain airbags, and it even gets seats that incorporate an anti-microbial fabric. In choosing the winner of the "Taxi of Tomorrow" competition, Bloomberg said his number one priority was safety, both from a great deal of harm, like a car accident, and from less imminent threats, like germs.

In a separate meeting with Ghosn he made it very clear that he expects Nissan to make a profit on the contract, which is expected to be worth $1 billion over the life of the contract. And it may well lead to other learning lessons for Nissan, which has committed heavily to EVs: Ghosn said an electric version of the NV200 will very likely overtake the gas version, made in Mexico, during the later half of Nissan's contract with New York. It will take a network of fast-charging stations to make that viable, but the onset of such a network in NYC could be driven by both government and consumer preferences, Ghosn said, noting that younger consumers say they expect to be able to drive an EV as their main vehiclein the near future.

Maybe that's part of Nissan's plan: Shuffle young people around in EV taxis while they're paying off student debt, then sell them a Nissan Leaf.